The Sannai-Maruyama Site is a Japanese archaeological site located in northern Honshu of Japan, Aomori-prefecture. The government of the Aomori-prefecture planned to extend an athletic park into the area, and before building the park, the government researched the area and tried to record what they found.
The site is the biggest archaeological site from the time period of 5,500 B.P. to 4,000 B.P. in Japan. They excavated over 30 thousand boxes of artifacts. Included in the assemblage were lacquered wares, modifiers, jades, baskets, textures, seeds, pollen, animal/fish bones and human bones. The most outstanding thing found was evidence of a building. Wood poles, with a diameter of over one meter and standing 2.5 meters deep in holes placed 4.2 meters apart, were found.
These wood poles raise many questions. For instance, the Japanese archaeologists and historians had thought that the people did not have any social differences or hierarchy at that time. They also thought that the people depended on hunting and gathering and did not have agriculture. However, the evidence found at this site proves this to be wrong. To build such a big building, they would have needed more organization and a larger society than hunting and gathering societies would have allowed. This would indicate that there was leaders and social differentiation.
The Sannai-Maruyama Site also had evidence of an agricultural life. The DNA of plants at the site showed that they were cultivated rather than wild. The findings at this site have the potential to change the way people think about Japan's prehistory.
Sources
http://www.pref.aomori.jp/sannai/san
http://www.sphere.ad.jp/capa/a-bank/maruyama/
Kaori Kobayashi